New Ultra High End Price Point With GeForce 8800 Ultra
by Derek Wilson on May 2, 2007 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Often, when reviewing hardware, it is difficult to draw a hard line and state with total confidence that our conclusions are the only logical ones that can be drawn from the facts. We try very hard to eliminate personal opinion from our reviews and provide readers with enough information to form their own educated opinions. We try to point out the downsides of the best products out there, as well as the niche uses for which otherwise disappointing hardware might shine. So often our job is about balance and temperance.
But not this time: The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra is an utter waste of money.
Let's review the facts. First, our performance data shows the 8800 Ultra to perform on par with our EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTX KO ACS3. Certainly the 8800 Ultra nudges the EVGA part out of the lead, but the performance difference is minimal at best. The price difference, however, is huge. We can easily find the EVGA card for its retail price of $650, while NVIDIA expects us to pay $180 more for what amounts to a repositioned cooling fan and updated silicon. Foxconn also offers an overclocked GTX for $550 that has essentially the same clocks as the EVGA KO ACS3 (Foxconn is 630/2000 versus 626/2000 for EVGA), making $830 even more unreasonable.
Add to that the fact that we've tested over a dozen 8800 GTX parts since their launch last year, and every single card we've tested has reached higher core clock speeds than the 8800 Ultra with overclocking. We know that increasing core clock speed using nTune causes shader clock speed to increase as well. Setting an 8800 GTX core clock to 621 would give us a shader clock of ~1450MHz, coming close to the 8800 Ultra level. The extra 50MHz increase in shader clock speed won't have a very large impact on performance as we have seen in our clock scaling tests.
All this leaves memory speed as the 8800 Ultra's only real advantage: none of the memory on 8800 GTX parts we've tested can reach 1080MHz from the base 900MHz. The only problem is that this doesn't give the part enough of a boost to matter in current real world performance tests.
With GPU revisions including layout changes, process tweaks, and an improved cooling solution, the least we would expect from the creation of a new price point in the consumer graphics market is a new level of performance. Price isn't the issue here: it's all about the value. It would be difficult even for a professional gamer to justify the purchase of an 8800 Ultra over the EVGA overclocked GTX. This incarnation of the G80 is even less justifiable than Intel's Extreme processors or AMD's FX line.
Certainly, placing some value in overclockability is fair. The problem here is that the stock speed at which the card runs offers no real added value over an already available overclocked 8800 GTX. If the overclockability of the G80 A3 silicon is its key point, why not simply offer the chips to add-in card builders at a premium and allow them to make custom overclocked boards at the speeds they choose? Let them call it an 8800 Ultra without defining a (rather low) stock speed for the new cards.
If user overclocking is where it's at, then standard 8800 GTX speeds are fine. Call it an 8800 Ultra because it features A3 silicon, market it towards overclockers, and sell it at a price premium. But don't try to sell us on 612/1500/1080 clock speeds.
With a push towards targeting overclockers we have to wonder: if there is so much headroom in the 8800 Ultra, why not offer us stock clock speeds that make a real performance difference?
We are all for higher performance, and we don't mind higher prices. But it is ridiculous to charge an exorbitant amount of money for something that doesn't offer any benefit over a product already on the market. $830 isn't the issue. In fact, we would love to see a graphics card worth $830. The 8800 Ultra just isn't it.
Often, when reviewing hardware, it is difficult to draw a hard line and state with total confidence that our conclusions are the only logical ones that can be drawn from the facts. We try very hard to eliminate personal opinion from our reviews and provide readers with enough information to form their own educated opinions. We try to point out the downsides of the best products out there, as well as the niche uses for which otherwise disappointing hardware might shine. So often our job is about balance and temperance.
But not this time: The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra is an utter waste of money.
Let's review the facts. First, our performance data shows the 8800 Ultra to perform on par with our EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTX KO ACS3. Certainly the 8800 Ultra nudges the EVGA part out of the lead, but the performance difference is minimal at best. The price difference, however, is huge. We can easily find the EVGA card for its retail price of $650, while NVIDIA expects us to pay $180 more for what amounts to a repositioned cooling fan and updated silicon. Foxconn also offers an overclocked GTX for $550 that has essentially the same clocks as the EVGA KO ACS3 (Foxconn is 630/2000 versus 626/2000 for EVGA), making $830 even more unreasonable.
Add to that the fact that we've tested over a dozen 8800 GTX parts since their launch last year, and every single card we've tested has reached higher core clock speeds than the 8800 Ultra with overclocking. We know that increasing core clock speed using nTune causes shader clock speed to increase as well. Setting an 8800 GTX core clock to 621 would give us a shader clock of ~1450MHz, coming close to the 8800 Ultra level. The extra 50MHz increase in shader clock speed won't have a very large impact on performance as we have seen in our clock scaling tests.
All this leaves memory speed as the 8800 Ultra's only real advantage: none of the memory on 8800 GTX parts we've tested can reach 1080MHz from the base 900MHz. The only problem is that this doesn't give the part enough of a boost to matter in current real world performance tests.
With GPU revisions including layout changes, process tweaks, and an improved cooling solution, the least we would expect from the creation of a new price point in the consumer graphics market is a new level of performance. Price isn't the issue here: it's all about the value. It would be difficult even for a professional gamer to justify the purchase of an 8800 Ultra over the EVGA overclocked GTX. This incarnation of the G80 is even less justifiable than Intel's Extreme processors or AMD's FX line.
Certainly, placing some value in overclockability is fair. The problem here is that the stock speed at which the card runs offers no real added value over an already available overclocked 8800 GTX. If the overclockability of the G80 A3 silicon is its key point, why not simply offer the chips to add-in card builders at a premium and allow them to make custom overclocked boards at the speeds they choose? Let them call it an 8800 Ultra without defining a (rather low) stock speed for the new cards.
If user overclocking is where it's at, then standard 8800 GTX speeds are fine. Call it an 8800 Ultra because it features A3 silicon, market it towards overclockers, and sell it at a price premium. But don't try to sell us on 612/1500/1080 clock speeds.
With a push towards targeting overclockers we have to wonder: if there is so much headroom in the 8800 Ultra, why not offer us stock clock speeds that make a real performance difference?
We are all for higher performance, and we don't mind higher prices. But it is ridiculous to charge an exorbitant amount of money for something that doesn't offer any benefit over a product already on the market. $830 isn't the issue. In fact, we would love to see a graphics card worth $830. The 8800 Ultra just isn't it.
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kalrith - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
...because you can't purchase an E6600 that's overclocked to 2.9GHz out of the box, with the warranty intact. The extreme CPUs are actually marketable to people who want the overclocked performance without doing it on their own and voiding the warranty.We can already do that with EVGA's overclocked 8800GTX that performs at about 2% less than the Ultra and costs 22% less. It does that right out of the box and keeps its warranty at that performance level.
ADDAvenger - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
Like they aren't already more of a status symbol than commodity!?
DerekWilson - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
perhaps to some ... and the ferrari analogy isn't quite right there either -- ferrari's actually have something to offer on the road/track, and they can be a good investment as well ... perhaps I need to rework that sentence.the thing is, there are enthusiasts out there who will buy the 8800 GTX for it's performance. but with cards more like the ultra, we will see fewer people buy the card for any quality/performance advantage. a higher ratio of status seekers will buy it as opposed to real enthusiasts.
certainly the hardcore overclockers will be interested. and it'll be interesting to see what A3 G80 silicon can do when strapped to a phase change cooling system. but that market isn't very large.
sxr7171 - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Well the market for any $830 card isn't large as it stands, but the likelihood users adding some crazy cooling to it is pretty high among those who would pay $830 for a video card.Den - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
I would like to see the power usage numbers on this card since part of the A3 revision was supposed to help reduce power consumption.I agree this is a big step in price for a small step in performance, but that is just like high end CPU's. The interesting question is, when EVGA and others come out with overclocked Ultra cards, how much faster will those be than their overclocked GTX's? If they can get a 10% lead for $200 more, I bet they will get some takers.
DerekWilson - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
we don't usually test power with reference boards. we'll certainly look at it when we get our hands on a retail product though.nvidia is reporting lower power usage with the 8800 Ultra that ammounts to just a couple watts less than the 8800 GTX. While this is good for a higher performance part, it's nothing to write home about.
Chadder007 - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
Holy Not worth the price of admission Batman!! That much more for an overclocked GTX?Fluppeteer - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
I completely understand this review's conclusions, but I can't help but notice...If the reviewers have agreed that the only point of this card is its ability to be overclocked, and given that they overclocked it (and proved that it has more headroom than the GTX), why are there no performance results for the overclocked card? Just because retail cards may behave differently? Surely they'd overclock *somewhat*, so the extra sample point (even with a "YMMV" by it) would be useful.
Fine, overclocking ability varies on a card-by-card basis, but if the sole point of this card (whether nVidia market it as such or not) is to be ramped up from the default clock, it seems strange not to have shown how much performance this might have provided.
Clearly the Ultra at default clock isn't economical compared with an overclocked GTX (no news there - a lot of overclocked devices are more economical than slower "higher end" parts), but if this card is really capable of running at higher speeds, that still makes it the fastest card available - and it would be nice to know by how much. Maybe nVidia will change their minds about the default clock (and remove a few Ultras from the production line) if the 2900XTX turns out to be faster than expected.
I'll reserve judgement until the consumer cards appear.
sxr7171 - Thursday, May 3, 2007 - link
Yes that is the real question. The whole reason all the revisions were done was to enable better O/Cing. Anyway, I can't afford it, but I hope it O/Cs well for those who can.ss284 - Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - link
This is a really good point. Some OCed results would help, although the card is still overpriced.